100507/08

IN WHICH I have less than 48 hours to get to New York City, find a place to live, seal the deal, and return home, victorious. Period. This is my account of my housing reconnaissance, May 7 – 8.

I’ve always had this thing about New York City. Ever since I can remember, it seemed to me a terrifying mixture of too much concrete, too much hype and too many people hell bent on doing each other too much harm. Obviously, I have entire storehouses of negative New York memes running rampant through my already imaginative mind. I pictured NYC as a cruel and uncaring place; a wretched empire for the young, the rich, the jaded and the exceptionally greedy, where being pick-pocketed, mugged, and robbed was just something that happened while you stood in line for coffee.

And then I learned I was being transferred there.

Once I stopped hyperventilating, I began pouring through the history of the city; spending hours hunched over Google Earth, memorizing subway maps, bus schedules, and generally reading everything there was to know about this mecca of perpetual insomnia. I imagined that IF I found a place to live, it’d be an overpriced cubbyhole beneath creaking stairs in a condemned building. I imagined that crackheads, pimps, thieves and junkies would take turns breaking into my apartment while I slept, stealing everything that I owned, over and over, until I went mad. I further imagined that if I went to my employers and complained, they’d somehow blame me for negligence. (I pride myself on being a law-abiding person, but I’ve had some bad experiences with authority figures in the past, instances which I’ll not expound upon here, but which have nonetheless left me permanently mistrustful of bureaucracy of any sort. Die, trust. Die.)

Two pieces of information did wonders for my mood: One, NYCScout, a production location specialist I follow on Twitter, revealed that there were only three “real” New York alleys left in the whole city.  The odds of me being dragged into one of them by a gang of vicious 6th graders and beaten within an inch of my life was officially slim to none. And two, there was the legacy of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; a blitzkrieg on the underbelly of New York of old, which many say resulted directly in the dwindling crime rate.

Your predicted response: “But I miss the whores in Times Square!” I realize that NYC means different things to different people, and there are some of you who probably love it. Awesome. I’d like to point out that you already have fond memories and experiences on which to base your opinions. I, at the time of writing this, do not. So please, allow me the opportunity to be wrong.

Housing: I knew I was going to need a place as close to the subway line as possible. There is such a thing as a real estate triangle in NYC; SPACE, LOCATION, and PRICE. You can have two. Unless you’re a household name, you probably won’t get all three. There was no way I could afford anything in Lower Manhattan or Greenwich Village, which was a straight shot uptown on the 1 Red line. My secondary was Brooklyn; specifically, the quiet, tree-lined neighborhoods of Williamsburg.

The subway and bus routes were like colorful rivers that cut through the city, flowing straight toward the mouth of the Staten Island Ferry, and without a better source of info, I based my apartment-hunting strategy on this. A stroke of good luck: a fellow photographer and good friend introduced me to his brother Anthony; an up-and-coming real estate broker who just happened to work for the largest firm in NYC. This made all the difference in the world. I contacted Anthony; we agreed on a time and a place to meet, and he advised me as to what forms I would need to bring along. There was nothing left to do but go.

I caught the 0635 train departing Union Station on Friday, May 7. Next stop: facing my fears.

HOUSTON WE HAVE LANDED. 10:26 AM May 7th via Tweetie

Friday, 10:36 – Climbing up out of Penn Station, I was immediately overwhelmed by the mass, movement, meat, and metal around me. If I were an asthmatic, I’d have been sucking on my inhaler like it was my job. Truth be told, I’m not a big city guy. I like small towns, quiet neighborhoods, and lots of silence. An ideal afternoon is spent hiking along in the woods, or exploring abandoned buildings. I can’t really explain the tightness in my chest brought on by my first glimpse of the city.

Time to focus. I moved east toward my hotel until I looked at my watch — holy fucking fish fingers! I had less than 25 minutes to find the subway, make my way to Brooklyn, and meet my broker! Fortunately, I believe in redundancy and prior planning. I’d already downloaded HopStop and plotted out my course in the event that I ran late, and everything I needed for the weekend was on my back. I tightened the straps and turned South along 6th, making a beeline for Herald Square. After a few wrong turns, I descended into the subway. (I’m going to miss the swipe card technology of Disco Charlie’s Metro system.)

AWAY TEAMS: DEPLOYED, NAVIGATION SWEEP: ACTIVE. SUBWAY: CONQUERED. Good morning, New Yorkers. A tattooed giraffe walks among you… 11:09 AM May 7th via Tweetie

Friday, 11:59 – Now in a rental property office somewhere in Brooklyn. Arrived just minutes before my broker. (Go, me!) I’d dressed sharp for a change; new brown shoes, khaki trousers and a respectable navy blue button down. I lost all sense of “with it” in the restroom when I sprayed room freshener on my hands after mistaking it for hand soap. The upside? I smelled like flowers. The bathroom mirror had fallen from its mounting brackets some time ago and was propped in place with bricks of Styrofoam and blocks of concrete. At least I could see that my shoes were tied properly.

Friday, 1:30 - I found a place! (*sigh of relief*) MAYBE. The property hadn’t even been listed yet. One bedroom, gas stove, new appliances, wood floors, fresh paint, great view, plenty of floor space, tile bathroom, NNE-facing windows with a balcony, and plenty of storage space. Third floor, steel doors, secured building, good locks. I’d have rooftop space with a view of Manhattan, AND it’s in a tree-lined neighborhood just a few blocks from a Lego-simple train ride to the office, AND and it’s within my price range. It even included a giant wardrobe that matched my writing desk and bookshelf. I thought about how great it would be to move in.., clean the place from top to bottom, stock the fridge, arrange my bookshelf, open the windows, light some incense and wait for the rains to fall…

Conflict: I wanted to get my hopes up. / I couldn’t afford to get my hopes up.

Even as we were viewing the apartment, I was told that the top floor apartment had *just* been taken. I immediately staked my claim on 3R, and hoped for the best.

Later: Turns out my broker has a similar interest in pulp sci-fi, and he’s been working on an “old time” radio show, but hasn’t had time to get it off the ground. We talked time travel, wormholes and exchanged globe-hopping experiences over beer and tacos in a Mexican place nearby.

Later still: Man, they aren’t kidding about Williamsburg being the capital of hipsters. I think I’ve seen Beck about thirty-five times in the past 6 hours. Painfully thin and bearded is where it’s at, apparently.

Q: How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It’s a very obscure number, you’ve probably never heard of it.

Friday, 5:00 – I checked into my hotel on 6th and 37th. Unpack, unwind. I laid out my gear in an orderly manner, everything spaced evenly along the counter from largest to smallest and in order of use or importance. (Yeah, I’ve got a little problem…) Ventured out to get some food, returned to my room. “Oh, but you should have explored! I would have looked around! I’d want to see everythin –” Yeah, I’m sure you would. I wasn’t in town to spend money or explore. I needed every penny for tomorrow. There’d be time for that later. Hopefully.

Not surprised, I couldn’t get a signal in my room after 9 p.m. Watched TV, once again reminded of why I haven’t had cable in over a decade: because it sucks.

Saturday, 1230: Once the application forms were signed, I walked around my (hopefully) new neighborhood, figuring the best thing to do with all this nervous energy was learn the lay of the land. I found a grocer at the mouth of the Graham Street subway stop with all my favorite things on the shelves. (see also: Guinness, Naked, fresh fruit and vegetables.) I was so optimistic about my apartment and a new life in this neighborhood that I must have wished ten little old ladies a happy Mother’s Day. (Kind words from a 6-foot boy scout in Buddy Holly glasses makes old ladies smile.) I found a Thai restaurant, a coffee house, AND they’ve got a little something called Barcade; a happy marriage of beer and electronic nostalgia. Galaga and Guinness, here I come!

From their Twitter page:  2 new games just arrived: Satan’s Hollow and Paperboy. 3:41 PM Mar 24th via web

I walked back to the Frost Street apartment and stood across the street, visualizing myself living there, establishing a routine, and becoming familiar with my surroundings, a fixture in the neighborhood.  If this didn’t happen the way I hoped it would, I had no idea what I would do. I wouldn’t have the time and money to make another trip north. This was all or nothing…

Grafitti from Williamsburg, Brooklyn: http://twitpic.com/1m62gn about 21 hours ago via Tweetie

More from Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn: http://twitpic.com/1m66xw about 21 hours ago via Tweetie

Next objective: I took the subway to my new office and timed the route. Thirty minutes later, I was standing at the front door of the southernmost building on Manhattan Island, buffeted by the wind and squinting from the dust being blown up around me. Easy! I’d be up and out the door no later than 0655 every weekday. Plus, I could work as late as I wanted and still catch a ride home. Checked my watch again. My train pulled out of the station in four hours.

After I left Battery Park, I walked north along Church St to Sixth, to the Avenue of The Americas to Greenwich to 11th the whole way to 35th. I reasoned that with all the tourist traffic this town had, it’d probably worked out the transportation bugs long ago. And if 8,363,710 could live here then I could, too.

Presently on foot moving up Ave of the Americas toward Penn Station, eyes peeled for grafitti… about 20 hours ago via Tweetie

And now, my two-word review of New York City: SHUT! UP! http://twitpic.com/1m6fko about 20 hours ago via Tweetie

Apparently the economy is having an adverse effect on everyone.

Once I got over the vertigo and the overwhelming amount of concrete, craziness and carbon-based lifeforms, I was OK. I tried hard not to get my hopes up about the apartment, but I had to have something positive to focus on. Without a home to call my own, I’d be in dire straits. Imagining that I would have a place to call home in this busy biomass did wonders for my mood. Lately, I’d had the feeling of being backed into a corner. I just needed an even break, and I began to feel that NYC might just be what I was looking for.

I felt as though my perception of the world had just grown from a two-lane dirt road in a school zone to an eight-lane superhighway complete with triple-cloverleaf overpass. Sort of.

7:00 – Saturday evening. Now in Penn Station, waiting for my 9:00 train home. Sipping at an iced coffee with two shots and enjoying a cold Guinness while I recharge my physical batteries, and attempt to replenish my iPhone’s power supply.

BASTARD! My 167 Regional ride home is :35 min late. “…as if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.” about 16 hours ago via Tweetie

I talked to a DeNiro look-alike while I waited, another soul hoping to make it as an actor: “So I finish my head shots, ” he says, “and I’m on H street, walking along, minding my own business, right? I put a cigarette out and this guy says to me, ‘Hey, gimme a cigarette.’ I says to him, ‘I got no cigarettes, and I ain’t tryin’ to sell ya one, either!’ And so he says to me, ‘Man, you’re a fucking asshole!’ How the fuck am *I* the asshole, here?” We laughed, then he says, “You’re a pretty big guy, he prolly wouldn’ta said shit to you.” They called Deniro’s train and he walked away.

After a :50 minute wait, I boarded my train back to Disco Charlie. I managed to pick a crap seat. No electricity.

We’re stopped at Newark airport. An express train whips past; a fantastic display of the Doppler effect. WEEEEEEOOOOwwwww…

Moments later, one of the porters comes by and flicks a switch just out of my view. Electricity! “Master Blaster runs Bartertown!” With nothing good to read (William Gibson’s “The Difference Engine” had failed to scratch my itch), I proceeded to Tweet my ass off:

@abitofmybrain I’ve been gassed, shot at, maced, violently ill at sea, divorced, and changed my fair share of diapers. I can take this! about 16 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to abitofmybrain

@myauralfixation He was AWESOME live! He stood with one foot on the rail, poised like a crow, and pointed down at me for “Mercy Seat.” about 15 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to myauralfixation

Thanks to everyone who clapped their hands and cried out, “I DO believe in timely trains!” I am now enroute to Disco Charlie. Later, NYC. about 15 hours ago via Tweetie

Travelling by train is easier than flying, but they should look into installing hammocks – or lining the seats with hippie/gypsy pillows. about 12 hours ago via Tweetie

Apparently May 8 is National Train Day, so if you know any one who’s a train, please show your support and take them to lunch. about 14 hours ago via Tweetie

@myauralfixation Inspired by yr tweet, I’m presently downloading The Cult’s “Fire Woman” while rolling along through the Pennsylvania night. about 13 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to myauralfixation

@troystith “For those about to caffeinate, we salute you!” <– Fact: The original title of the AC/DC classic, it was felt as “lacking”. about 13 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to troystith

Dear @TommyWiseau: while I didn’t grasp the full intensity of your controversial hit “The Room”, I hope you find a home on Twitter. Best! about 13 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to TommyWiseau

L/T: Black Moth Super Rainbow on my way through Baltimore. Can’t sleep, can’t shut up – but you probably know that about me by now. about 12 hours ago via Tweetie

At last, Union Station, Disco Charlie. End of the line. This concludes our programming day. Please stand by for our National Anthem. -30- about 11 hours ago via Tweetie

Home by 3 a.m., up at 7, it’s…

TWM

P.S. I got the apartment.

081210

“The Internet is full of music. Some of it we like, some of it we don’t. Then, there’s Phil Collins.” – Unknown

“The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds.” – John Searle

So, I think my iPod can read my mind, or at least understand my moods.

Preface: Whether the device is benevolent or malevolent remains to be seen. Since it’s essentially a manmade device it is thereby removed from the sticky regulations governing human ethics, just as a gun is a gun; at once a weapon of destruction and an exciting television remote, depending on the hand that wields it. On these shaky grounds, I suppose it can be said it possesses both good and evil. Whether I snapped it in half and used the jagged ends to carve crude epithets on the foreheads of cornered strangers, or used it for its intended purpose, it’s still neutral because it can’t act on its own. Just to be on the safe side, I keep it on ‘shuffle’, the rough equivalent of ‘free will’.

My iPod plays what I refer to as ‘baseline’ when I’m doing something that doesn’t require much involvement, such as riding the Metro or walking down the street. I think of these as background songs because they are ‘just songs’. They contain very little magic and only trace amounts of passion, yet their melodies have gentle impact on my perspective, changing the way I feel about my surroundings in subtle ways, like a director moving the viewer along from scene to scene and emphasizing certain things in the frame. These songs provide the soundtrack to a movie that never seems to end.

That begs another question: how does my iPod know where I am, what’s going on around me, or even that I’m on the Metro? Damned if I know, but it does! Maybe it’s got my behavior patterns down so cold that it knows I wake up at 0645, get ready for work, and board the morning train at 0730. (I’m kinda OCD that way, so I suppose that’s one possible solution.)

Another question; if the songs in my library could be considered a means of expression and communication for my 4GB AI, am I limiting its vocabulary with the music I choose to listen to? Does it ‘like’ the same music I do, only because it’s never been exposed to anything else? Obviously an iPod has a ‘priori’ and ‘a posteriori’ knowledge, long bits of code that give it a rudimentary identity, and tell it how to interact with my computer. Do iPods come to resemble their owners in the way that pets do (in more than physical characteristics, like tacky leather carrying cases, and poor color choices?) I know there are probably far more important questions I could be asking here, but I don’t have the time. I’m on my lunch break.

In the morning, my enlightened little friend knows to play songs that drive me and motivate me, songs that compel me, propelling me along as I weave in and out of dense morning crowds of commuters as though I were skydiving through a slow motion explosion… I envision myself in freefall, a HALO jump, alighting perhaps on a giant chunk of what used to be an office building spinning gently through the morning light. I charge along the length of this tumbling platform and fling myself from the opposing edge with all the grace of an Olympic diver or a practitioner of Parkour, stepping gingerly across torn fragments of detonation-damaged I-beams as though I were crossing a quiet country brook on the moss-covered tops of common stones, the slap of fragmented dust and debris slapping against the fabric of my protective suit like raindrops on a sleepy tin roof as I continue my descent. (Sometimes I wonder what other people think about on the way to the office!)

There are songs so indescribably powerful that, when I hear them, I get the distinct impression that I’m trailing fire; long blue tongues of visible flame that seep from my skin as though I were perpetually striding through the gateway of another world, another dimension. These songs make me feel as though I were experiencing on-the-spot evolution, as though I were shedding my weakness, becoming More; swapping emotion-vulnerable flesh and blood for the impervious safety of machine-driven precision. As though the vaguely recollected fragments of a long-lost destiny were being decoded from songs and related only to me. (“This isn’t your world, you’re just passing through, you belong up there, out there…”)

There are songs so potent, so utterly overwhelming, so perfectly consuming, so wonderful that I wish scientists would hurry up and invent a way for me to climb inside them, so I could bolt the doors and stay awhile. There are songs that make me feel that time is slowing down, coming to a halt. Sometimes I catch sight of the second hand on my watch running backwards a few ticks before Greater Laws take precedence, and the Blessed Machinery of the Universe resumes authority with a quiet hum.

There are songs so heartbreakingly mournful, so absolutely barren, that I have to thrust my hand into my pocket with a gunfighter’s speed and fast-forward to the next track lest I fall to my knees, incapacitated on a busy sidewalk with great streams of tears running down my face; forced to relive some now-forgotten heartbreak, some ancient feeling of abandonment, some prior loss or rejection. Sometimes they’re not even my emotions, which makes them even harder to deal with. During those interludes, it’s as if everything were coming down around my ears at once, and a very real, very tangible, weight were bearing down hard on my shoulders, on my bones, on my heart, and on my lungs. Enough!’ I cry aloud. ‘It is too much for any one soul to deal with!’

There are songs in my collection now lost to me, songs I’ve shared with former lovers, songs that summon up their smiles of perfect warmth and angelic light, such adoration as I may never know again; chords and notes that contain their smells, their tastes, and their touch upon my skin like lockets worn about the neck. Those songs hurt me in ways I cannot fully describe here. Suffice to say, I find it necessary to remove them from my library altogether, until such a time as their memories have sufficiently faded and they can be released back into the wild. (Presently, my entire collections of ‘Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’, ‘Clutch’, and ‘The Melvins’ are on temporary suspension. You’d think I’d learn to be secretive about my music, hide it away from new flames and interests, learn to protect my heart, preserve my collection. But then, I’m not the one spinning the hits, am I?)

The experiment continues…

TWM

 

All Great Things Must First Wear Monstrous and Terrifying Masks…

Attention marketing types:

“People sleeping on/
trains don’t give a good goddamn/
about your billboards.”

On the Metro ride home yesterday, I found myself fantasizing about the reversal of gravity and those brief, panic-ridden seconds before everything not already bolted down would suddenly go flying north. All around me, people would be grasping desperately at building ledges, crammed into bus stops, stuck safe inside the subway, and trapped at work. Those in traffic would have it the worst, doomed to explore the outer reaches of space in their brand new Hummer, wholly unprepared for the rushing sound of precious oxygen to go whooshing out through the rubber seals. Might as well start the engine, and turn up the radio. There’s not much left to do at that point but enjoy the view and think kindly upon your life…

The Metro is like some kind of anthropologist lab experiment; the set scowls of those who know they’ve been fucked every day of their lives, and when they wake up, they’ll be fucked again. The cartoonist indifference, the minor indignity which adds up up over time. Time rolls on, wholly unaware of our perception of it. We chop the river into pieces, and label it ‘years’, ‘months’, ‘seconds.’ It wouldn’t matter if we labeled it ‘rye’, wheat’ or ‘potato’. Did we begin to age faster from the moment we first created the calendar? I’m sitting in a rail car moving at X speed along unblinking steel rails.

07JAN08 – Staten Island, New York. This trip has so far reaffirmed my desire to avoid big city life. It’s loud, hot and way too fast. I have the distinct impression that with one wrong move, I could slip, fall, and be eaten alive by the sidewalk, yelping and screaming as the city devours my legs. A large man named Paulie from the pizza place on the corner will shrug and say, “Enh, it’s New York, whaddya gonna do?”

Winter has a way of making things look worn and tattered. This can be compounded by staying in a Staten Island Navy Lodge with a glamorous view of the parking lot, and an honest-to-fuck trundle bed that creaked like the belt of a fat man when I pulled it down from the wall. Right now, all I want to do is wash my face, brush my teeth and kick off my Docs – proof positive that I’m getting older. I can remember a time when a cold drink and a wild time were paramount upon arriving somewhere new.

Hotels used to keep pads of stationary in the occupants rooms. All I’ve seen lately are notepads, and shitty Bic pens with the hotel logo on them. It’s as if we have lost the opportunity to be elegant, to sit down and compose our thoughts on paper, or express ourselves in complete sentences. Everything is moving faster, sentences are getting shorter, attention spans are shrinking. Or maybe we’ve just shifted our medium.

09JAN08 –Later, on the train home: the job went smooth. I packed in a king-hell hurry and flung myself into the back seat of a Lincoln Navigator as we raced off to the Staten Island ferry. Saw the Statue of Liberty from the bow, and was buffeted by winds so strong I thought I would lose my glasses. Took the 1 Red to Penn Station, a heaving, groaning thing, that crawled toward me like an old farm horse begging for a mercy round. Times Square was too much noise, and too much flash; like taking a Viet Nam vet to a fireworks display in the swamp. I was braced for craziness, anticipating thievery, and moving too fast to look around properly.

But now that I’ve dipped my toes in the waters of this town, I can begin to see pieces of the attraction, and the necessity to document it. I could happily wander the streets with a point-and-shoot camera and fill the entire memory card in ten minutes with portraits, details, buildings, and a thousand different perspectives. It never ends. It’s like doing anything hot, loud and fast enough to be considered formidable, and then spending the next lifetime trying to recap that original high. I tend to function much better with a guide when I visit a new jungle, otherwise I find myself falling forever into the organic machinery of a single flower, or the weird bark of some tree, feeling as though I’ve seen it all.

Staring out the window of the train on the way out of town, listening to the Pachebel Canon, eyeing the red brush strokes of the cloud formations and the good-as-dead fields of useless marsh, wondering what Indians used to hunt what animals where.

Note to self: In this moment, you feel hopeful. The coins of possibility are in your hand. Don’t lose them. It wasn’t so bad. Receding in the distance, the concrete fingers of that heaving thing… Do you think New Yorkers wince when a plane flies too low? How do they take it, crammed in tight with their faces to the Wheel? I’m watching out for graffiti, a pastime of mine, and sneaking peaks at old brick history. From here, all I see are power plants and cramped little hovels advertising Chinese takeout. For sale signs grace faded brick warehouses, and empty loading bays with giant puddles on their rooftops are but empty canvasses to hooded youths armed with Krylon cans.

A window, the light is on. Someone in that very apartment will be watching TV tonight. They will answer their phone in an offhand manner, their attention divorced between the voice of the caller and that of David Letterman. They will be assailed by pizza commercials, and late night dating ads. They will laugh at something, without knowing why.

Parking lots, pink houses, neon signs, and strip malls, none of it relative to your life. Metropark signs, solid yellow lines, billboards and 4-digit numbers on the sides of the trains. No smoking; a girl with a cup of coffee standing on the platform looks like someone you’d want to get to know, but that’s just how she dresses on Wednesday. Tomorrow, she could be an entirely different person. (Everyone in NYC looks so much alike.)

Sun sets in the high rise windows, fire lights the trees. Early man probably thought his gods had abandoned him when the sun went down; left him blind and alone among the wolves to fend for himself, and all the prayers and burned-up rabbits in the world weren’t gonna make a lick of difference when the fire died… parked cars, parked cars, parked cars and Motel 6 signs.

Half in, half out of consciousness now… does God have a favorite color? If he’s above such petty things, then what makes you think he’d listen to your pleas for the Seahawks to win? But if he likes everyone equally, why worship yet another politician who can’t make up his mind? That’s why the ‘popular’ button on the jukebox was invented. Sorry, I’m ranting without purpose.

You will be outlasted by a parking garage. How do you feel about that? What will be left of you when it’s time for you to vanish; when the violins and other gentle instruments are serenading you with a swan song, and your body begins to peel away like the pages in Grey’s Anatomy, flinging into the wind like something out of a Japanese Anime. Which part of you will feel the Fear first?

Yes, think on that: when the rest of the living world takes that first step away from you, and you see the human race clearly for the first time; their heads bowed, arms linked, marching in a circle, shuffling in the dark, propelled by fear, led by lies, each step made in the hopes that there will be one more to follow… Our minds are like a universe encased in glass, giving us the ability to see forever separately, but never truly touch it as one… and suddenly, everything you are and have ever known takes that first step away from you, and you realize with a sudden shock, “Oh, God! I’m dying!” What then?

Your hands grip tight but there’s nothing there, it’s like gripping at fog, and you realize the hands of the people you’ve been holding on to for your entire life have just slipped past your fingertips. Your parking voucher has expired. Your heart will leap in your throat as though you realize you’ve just lost your wallet, and you will seek immediate reassurance, some soothing or authoritative voice to reconnect your call and send you the bill. Will you laugh to yourself, as though finally getting the punch line of a long-gotten joke? Will you shriek in terror, with your hands to your mouth? Or will you see it as just another adventure, knowing that the secret You, the one you dare not expose to your closest friends or dearest lover, will never truly die, but that You are only leaving your body behind – will you finally accept that this was all a dream?

The distant light of a crucifix shines in through the darkness, superimposed over the reflection of the seat opposite me, like an embroidered logo for God’s Private Railroad.

For a man who doesn’t believe in God, I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately. The older I get, the more I’m convinced it’s a trick; one that politicians, authority figures and those who claw their way into Middle Management use to keep the rest of us in line, placing strong hands on the necks of the meek, demanding penitence and subservience.

Why the hassle? Remember that woman you met in H.H.I? She wanted to go to New Orleans to give blankets and food to the homeless. You thought it was a good idea, and you offered to help but she wouldn’t take you. “We prefer those who believe,” she explained to you patiently, as though you were dull. You wanted to help your fellow human beings, but all she wanted was for these poor fuckers to drop their final defenses and pledge allegiance to the Great Magi in the Sky, so they could have a warm blanket and a can of Dinty Moore. How fucked up is that? What ever happened to teaching a man to stand?

That happened a long time ago, but it comes flooding back so clearly tonight, borne on the smell of melted plastic and burning rubber on this southbound train in the year 2008.

I’m tired. I want to go to bed.

TWM